“Living is an ugly business, my friend. Many things haven’t changed.”
They stepped onto a stone path that was forty feet wide.
“This is the Sacred Way. It leads to the Sanctuary of Apollo.” Lourds pointed at the columns nearby. It looked like a large, stone square that had large porches that led up to it. Ex-votos, offering places meant to give tribute to the gods, lined the Sacred Way.
“I assume since he was the god of the sun that he found the idea of a roof offensive?”
Lourds grinned. “Perhaps. But inside there—see the long building?—that’s the Oikos of the Naxians, the house of the people from Naxos. That’s a nearby island, the largest in the Cyclades. The Cycladic civilization that lived there dates back to 3000 BCE. Some truly fascinating artifacts have been found there.”
He led the way down into the Agora of the Delians, where more long porches stood beside ex-votos. Carefully, Lourds began inspecting the porticos, looking for the name that had turned up in the scroll.
Fitrat began looking as well. “What are you looking for?”
“An inscription made by Pittacus of Mytilene.” Lourds kept moving, reading the inscriptions quickly. “And unless you’ve suddenly learned how to read Ancient Greek, you’re not going to be much help.”
Fitrat sighed. “I feel useless.”
“You can make dinner tonight as a way of apology.”
The captain grinned. “Sure. Who was Pittacus?”
“One of the Seven Sages of Greece, and that’s with capital letters. Each of the sages was supposed to represent an edict of worldly knowledge. Something everyone should know.”
“And what did Pittacus propose?”
“‘You should know which opportunities to choose.’”
“Under the circumstances, I suppose that is fitting.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Why Pittacus? Because of what he said?”
“I don’t think so.” Lourds kept moving and reading names. “Pittacus was from Mytilene, the people on the self-named island that was also called Lesbos.”
“Where Aristotle went for a time. I remember you mentioning that.”
“Exactly. Aristotle studied and taught there, and one of the people he would have covered in his material was Pittacus. Callisthenes knew that. I think the final bits of the code I’m struggling with are from the saying here because Pittacus was mentioned as having words of wisdom at Delos in the House. Furthermore, Lesbos tried to secede from the Delian League. As a result, the League made an example of them, ordering all men to be killed. They finally stopped the gendercide, to borrow a term from Mary Anne Warren, after killing a thousand men. The word lesbian was actually coined from the name of the island and referred to the fact that all those women were left alone, and too, the poet Sappho lived there. Sappho, as it turned out, was quite the ladies’ lady. If you read through her poetry, you’ll discover that it focuses almost exclusively on women and her sexual attraction to them.”
“Amazing.”
“What? The story?”
“No. That you know so many things. I think if I knew so many things, my head would blow up.”
Lourds brushed away some dirt on his latest find. And there, carved into the marble, was the name Pittacus. He grinned. “I found it.”
“What does it say?”
Lourds took out his phone and shot pictures of the inscription. Then he took a piece of paper from a drawing pad inside his backpack and placed it over the inscription. “Basically, it’s a repeat of what he was known for. Making the right choice. But the words are different. I suspect Callisthenes used some of them as replacements for the nonsense text I’m reading now. Hold this paper.”
While Fitrat helped him hold the paper in place, Lourds used a charcoal stick from his art box to take a rubbing. Then he carefully rolled the paper up and put it inside the protective case with the scrolls.
“All right. We’re finished here. Unless you want to take a look around.”
Fitrat shook his head. “Perhaps another time.”
Together, they headed back to the harbor. Lourds’s head was spinning as some of the words—now that he had them—were already dropping into place. But he wanted confirmation of his ideas and thought he knew exactly where to get it.
“We need to make another stop, Captain.”
Fitrat glanced at him. “Here?”
“No. In Athens. Will your gun permits work there as well?”
“As long as we are protecting you, and as long as the places you go have some relevance to the document, then, yes.”